On the production of neutrons in laminated barriers for 10 MV medical accelerator rooms

When space limitations are primary constraints, laminated barriers with metals can be an option to provide sufficient shielding for a radiotherapy treatment room. However, if a photon clinical beam with end point energy of 10 MeV or higher interacts with the metal inside the barriers neutrons are ejected and can result in an exposure problem inside and outside the vault. The empirical formulae existing in the literature to estimate neutron dose equivalents beyond laminated barriers do not take into account neutron production for spectra below 15 MV. In this work, the Monte Carlo code MCNP was used to simulate the production and transport of photoneutrons across primary barriers of 10 MV accelerator treatment rooms containing lead or steel, in order to obtain the ambient dose equivalents produced by these particles outside the room and in the patient plane. It was found that the neutron doses produced are insignificant when steel is present in the primary barriers of 10 MV medical accelerators. On the other hand, the results show that, in all cases where lead sheets are positioned in the primary barriers, the neutron ambient dose equivalents outside the room generally exceed the shielding design goal of 20 μSv/week for uncontrolled areas, even when the lead sheets are positioned inside the treatment room. Moreover, for laminated barriers, the photoneutrons produced in the metals are summed with the particles generated in the accelerator head shielding and can represent a significant component of additional dose to the patients. In this work, it was found that once lead sheets are positioned inside the room, the neutron ambient dose equivalents can reach the value of 75 μSv per Gray of photon absorbed dose at the isocenter. However, for all simulated cases, a tendency in the reduction of neutron doses with increasing lead thickness can be observed. This trend can imply in higher neutron ambient dose equivalents outside the room for thinner lead sheets. Therefore, when a medical accelerator treatment room is designed with laminated barriers to receive equipment with an end point energy equal to or higher than 10 MeV, not only the required shielding thickness for photon radiation attenuation should be considered, but also the dose due to photoneutrons produced in the metal, which may involve an increase of the lead thickness or even the use of neutron shielding